Monday, October 31, 2005

Oodles of noodles + hot broth + ingredients of choice = RAMEN!

Sapporo Ramen, is arguably the best ramen in Japan, and with over 1,000 ramen shops and a street dedicated to the craft of a ramen shop, needless to say, we were excited when we heard word of this Sapporo Ramen shop that imports its ingredients and noodles from Sapporo, Hokkaido.

This shop sits about 20 people inside and the about 10-15 people outside. Despite the fast food nature of this food, this place acquires a queue pretty quickly. On our first attempt, we arrived in the middle of the lunch hour, and the estimated wait for about 20-30 minutes. If they are already full, what you have to do is put your name down in the book that they have in front of the shop, and wait for them to call out your name. Hunger got the better of us on our first attempt, and so on your return attempt, we arrived early and we inched out the crowd by 5 minutes. Just as we sat down and ordered, more hungry and patient people came and penned down their name in the wait book.

Nosh: Ramen is the main feature of the menu, cold versions and hot version. The cold ramen is basically eaten like a cold soba/somen, the ramen with a small bowl of soup that you dip your noodles in, but for today’s ramen outing, we focused on the hot soup versions of ramen.

They serve a few versions of ramen here. The noodles are from Sapporo, but they have a variety of soup bases and extras that you can add on. From the soup range, we selected the Tokensen Sho-yu, Tokensen miso and the Tokensen Tori-Shio, and if you are feeling greedy, you can “upsize” your fast food to a larger bowl for $2, or add bamboo shoots, an additional egg, char siew and Japanese leeks, whatever you think would enhance your ramen.

The large white bowls arrived in about 7 minutes and the slurping began. The noodles were well textured and chewy, and the broth had a layer of oil that allowed the noodles to glide down your throat easily. That being said, I have come to realise that my bowl of ramen was probably not the healthiest thing – salty soup, fatty pork, layer of oil that laced my soup, nonetheless it was tasty bowl of noodles. Aside than being tasty, I was rather disappointed. If I had to wait for 30 minutes for that bowl of noodles, I would not wait, but if I could walk in for a taste bowl of noodles and to rush off to my other activities, my palate will be satisfied.

Pay: $12 a bowl of ramen.

Service: The only thing I admire about Mac D is their very efficient service. Despite it being a fast food joint here, the only fast part about the service is that your food comes fast, other than that, you will get very little assistance figuring out how the table system works.

2 Comments:

I was going to Book Cafe at St Martin's Road on 1 Nov 05. Hence,when I read your blog, since I'd be ardthe vicinity, was eager to try out Sapporo Ramen shop. But... much to our dismay. They were closed as they ran out of stock! Boo hoo! Better luck next time.

* The food at Book Cafe looks interesting. Tried their Lemongrass & Ginger Tea since I was there for tea. Nice refreshing drink dat's if U're a fan of lemongrass. Impt: Mux request for more lemongrass in tea thou otherwise it taste almost like water.